We are put in a very passive situation. I do not have any weapon, and Mirai obviously cannot take out her weapon. We need to keep a low profile to enter the mine, yet push comes to shove, and now, we seem to have no choice.
I try to make eye contact with Mirai, but she seems like she has an idea in mind. In fact, it looks like she has already planned for it.
- Oh, sorry. The thing is that I lose my left arm in a car accident. My arm is currently replaced with a metal prosthetic one. Here.
Mirai detaches her left arm. She holds the arm with her right hand and brings it towards the screening gate. It beeps (obviously). The officer still raises his eyebrows in suspicion, while Mirai is attaching her left arm back. She looks at the eye of the officer, as if she is showing that what she is saying is true.
- OK, I can believe you regarding that. - He sighs. - But just in case, let me check your backpack.
Mirai takes the tablet out, before she hands the backpack to the officer.
He looks at the bag to check for external devices or some sort. Then, he opens the bag to inspect the content. There is nothing inside the backpack, except the tablet that Mirai has taken out already. He brings the backpack towards the screening gate to check for hidden devices. It does not beep.
Mirai is smart enough to send all of our equipments back into the tablet. Although it is expected of a robot to think of such solutions, it is still impressive for me that even I do not notice when she did that.
- Here is your bag, Miss. There is nothing inside that might raise doubt. Just the last question, why do you take the tablet out? - He asks.
- This is the tracker for my left arm. My doctor says that I need to use that to check if my arm needs a replacement of something. The device is a bit sensible against X-rays, so if I do not forget, I would try not to pass it through scanners. - Mirai lies as she breathes.
That sentence does not apply to a pseudo-human, though. Maybe I should say that Mirai lies as her central processing unit drains the battery. This just sounds long, so I decide to discard the weird idea.
The officer no longer looks as tense. The traces of blood veins have disappeared from his face. He looks at the computer, checking our personal particulars for the last time, he reaches his printer, and print two radio frequency identification cards, or so-called RFID cards. He hands them to us.
- Here are your Identification Cards. They have your name and ID photo, and this would allow you guys to enter and exit the mine at any point of time. They have an effective duration of seven days, counting from the day you two receive the cards. Just nice for your trip. Alternatively, you can also scan your iris or fingerprint where they allow. Now, have a good visit.
The officer leads us outside, to the mine area. After exchanging greets, he goes back to the office building. The three of us enter the classified entrance, where the cards are in use.
Albert takes out his card and scans it at the entrance booth. His card has a different colour from us, since he is a regular person of the mine. After registering, the gate opens, and he walks in. We scan our cards at the booths next to his one, and enter the mine with him.
The first thing that hits our eyesight is a range of factories neatly arranged in two to three layers of an arc of the mine, operating at maximum power. The factories are massive, of course to serve the largest and arguably the busiest mine across the globe.
- Albert, can you lead us around this factory first? - I point at the factory closest to sight.
- Sure. There are about a hundred or a bit more factories in this area, aiming to extract about a billion metric tonnes of minerals, including aluminium, each year. This factory is just the tip of the iceberg, however. We build most of the factories underground to minimise the land area. But since you insist, let's just visit them. - Albert says, as we walk into the first factory.
There is another entrance booth waiting for us in the factory. After scanning our cards, we walk into the interior of the factory.
Upon entering, we are immediately amazed with the long rows of machines and devices, perfectly arranged to maximise efficiency, like gears in a clock fitting perfectly to make the clock run accurately. Raw mineral ores are transported from the ore to various portals automatically, which leads to several big, barrel-like structures that sits in the corner of the factory. They are mixed with various chemicals to filter out impurities, then they are transferred to other barrel structures that do the filtering. After a series of transferring, including the involvement of many autonomous machines in the process, aluminium metal remains as the final product. Albert goes to a container that stores aluminium metal product, in which they are already processed into industrial-sized slates and waiting for transportation to buyers, and takes out a slate.
- Here, do you want to take a look yourself? - Albert hands me the aluminium slate.
- Thanks. - I take it from him.
I inspect the slate. My spectacles start to emit rays that inspect the statistics of the metal slate. It notes down reflective properties, percentage component and other important properties to compare later. After rotating the metal, pretending to see it from different angles, for the spectacles to finish scanning, I hand the slate to Mirai. She also checks the slate. After finishing, we exchange nods and give the aluminium slate back.
- Thanks. Just in case, do we have access to any facilities and areas within the mine with this pass? - I ask.
- Sure. Starting from tomorrow, you can freely explore the area. It is not like we have anything to hide anyway. However, if you are going to explore the interior of the mine underground, we are not responsible for any injuries caused. So, try not to go inside the mine, unless you are sure that you will be walking out, unharmed.
- Thanks. We will try not to.
Albert guides us to another factory, which also processes aluminium. Basically, the ore processing is the same, but the layout of the machines are different. Albert hands us the aluminium slate of this factory, and we inspect it.
- I can tell you that the quality of our metals, especially aluminium, is top notch. You two do not need to suspect our chain production too much.
Maybe Albert just thinks that this is meaningless, as he asks us to hurry. However, there is a deeper meaning to what we are doing, but it is just that we cannot tell him, or anyone.
Mirai nudges my right arm and whispers.
- Yuusha, this would raise suspicion. How about we just follow him, and then we do our stuff tomorrow?
- That makes sense... - I hand the aluminium slate back to Albert.
After we leave the factory, Mirai asks Albert to lead us to the underground factory facilities. He leads us to the end of the arc. There is a small building. Inside, there is only an elevator, and of course a booth to scan our cards. After verifying our identity, the elevator door opens. The elevator chamber inside looks like it can fit an elephant or two.
There are only two buttons on the elevator chamber wall, and Albert presses the button below. In some time like a few seconds, the elevator brings us to the underground, where most of the ore processing takes place.
After exiting the elevator, we enter a long hallway. The hallway itself is the definition of nothingness, with the bare minimum lighting and ventilation for us to traverse. At the end, it leads to a facility that resembles an old train station in the twentieth century.
- The underground facilities are inaccessible to unprotected humans like us, because the lack of proper ventilation makes the air here very toxic. And since heat is trapped inside this, the temperature is just intolerable for human. That is why we will visit this with trains. - Albert says as he scans his fingerprint to call a train.
Immediately after the statement, Mirai and I understand the situation. Jackpot.